


An Island Entire of Itself

by writingmonsters



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Athos Is Not Dead, But He Sure Feels Like It Sometimes, Episode 1x10 Coda, Help, Hurt/Comfort, I've never written smut before, M/M, Porthos Helps, Porthos and Athos Take Care of One Another, how do I tag things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-01 12:30:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14520597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingmonsters/pseuds/writingmonsters
Summary: "any man's death diminishes me,because I am involved in mankind.And therefore never send to know for whomthe bell tolls; it tolls for thee." -John Donne





	1. Chapter 1

Slumped in the dirt of Paris, Athos imagines dying.

It is not the first time he has contemplated such a thing. The bullet that would tear soft flesh, shatter bone and organ in its trajectory. The sword-thrust that would cut out his ossified heart, leak the breath from his lungs. The velvet-black blindfold of a wine-induced stupor guiding him into the emptiness beyond the veil.

No. This is far from the first time that Athos has contemplated dying. But, when eyes flicker behind closed lids, it is the first time he dreads it.

For a moment, he cannot do it. He can't die – not even this imaginary death. The pulse in his wrists, behind his ribs, is too fast, frantic and frenetic and threatening to burst the tough muscle of his heart. And he chokes, strangles, cannot manage the controlled and shallow breaths he has practiced – just enough to take in air, the rise and fall of his chest hidden beneath the sturdy leathers – but he _cannot breathe_ …

Porthos's hand is heavy on his chest. The pig's blood is warm, poured surreptitiously over his belly, and Porthos smears it over his leathers and the cloth of his shirt, presses his palm against the manufactured wound. And he is sure to feel it, the quavering beneath his palm – _alive, alive_ – because the big, work-calloused hand smooths over Athos's chest, too gently to staunch a wound.

“He's dead.” Porthos does not say the words, so much as he chokes the pronouncement out; wrenches it up from some deeply painful place, and Athos had never expected to hear such grief from him. From any of them.

Not for the likes of him.

He lets his body go lax, slumps a little further, sprawls his limbs a bit more for effect – if he manages to brush his thumb along the vulnerable inside of Porthos's wrist as he does it, no one can fault him.

And somewhere in the street, Aramis is snarling – “ _murderer_ ” – boots pounding the dirt as he gives chase to d’Artagnan. All a ploy. So carefully orchestrated. And Athos lays still and plays at being dead, listening to the creak of leather, the soft blow of heavy breaths, footsteps and soft voices as the street begins to fill. The spectators have come to flock.

_Good_ , he thinks. _Let them see. Let it be the talk of Paris. There will not be a single street where she can walk without hearing the name of Athos. Without hearing that I am dead_.

The trap is laid.

He wonders if his ghost would haunt her as much as she has tormented him these past years. If she would fall asleep to his specter at her side and wake to the memory of his kiss against her mouth – if she would waste a thousand hours on what ifs, and had she’s, and perhapses, and had she only knowns…

But then, Anne had always been made of sterner stuff. Her vertebrae reinforced with a rapier’s steel. She had gone to the gallows upright and firm, that full mouth stiff, those dark eyes cold with hate.

No. Athos did not think he would haunt her after all – contrition was not Anne’s way, much less self-reproach. What was done was done and bore no more thinking about.

Athos? Athos could never stop thinking about it.

“S'alright now, Athos.”

He does not expect Porthos, head bent low, to murmur consolations, much less to skim a gentle palm along the curve of his skull, smoothing the flop of sweaty hair from his brow, cupping his cheek. “You're all right.”

“I'm sorry.” Aramis returns. Breathless. Futile. “The coward outran me. I… _Oh Athos_.”

In another world – another life, perhaps – Athos thinks they might all have made an excellent go of it in the _theatre_. He is fine. He is fine; he is dying and he is fine. And Porthos and Aramis sound as though they are ruined by the sight.

The air stirs as Aramis kneels beside them, and it is an effort not to twitch because Athos can hear the soft, anguished breath escape him. And then Aramis does a terrible thing.

It is all a farce. All a show for Milady and the eyes she surely has watching in the crowd. But Athos feels his spirit go cold, leaping from his skin when Aramis’s long fingers ghost the sign of the cross in the sweat on his forehead.

And then, softly, Aramis entreats his God with the words of extreme unction “ _per istam sanctan unctionem et suam piissimam misericordiam, indulgeat tibi Dominus_.”

Athos can barely suppress the shudder.

The arms that slide beneath his shoulders, cradle his knees, are so, so gentle. So careful. Athos makes a conscious effort to remain limp, to let his arms and legs dangle uselessly and his head roll against Porthos’s broad chest.

“His things” says Porthos. “Don't leave his things lyin' in the dirt.” And Athos has seen Porthos toss bigger men than he like sacks of flour in the garrison's training yards, but Porthos carries his dead weight like he is something fragile. Precious. “I’m sorry,” he soothes – a foolish thing, apologizing to a corpse. “I’m sorry.”

“Show some respect” Aramis snaps at gawking onlookers, dangerously acerbic, knocking the dust from Athos's discarded hat. “Clear the way.”

Porthos carries him all the way to the garrison, as though Athos weighs no more than a child. And Athos knows the moment they reach the gates – the instant they step beneath the causeway – because every muscle in Porthos's hard body goes rigid and the air vanishes from his lungs in a soft, strangled sound.

Treville was briefed. But the others…

They do not know.

“Is he…?”

“ _Mon Dieu._ ”

He hears Treville say “get him inside” and then the sunlight disappears from his eyelids and Aramis prays a soft, relentless litany as their boots make a racket on the wooden stairs.

The cellar is cool, lit by slants of sunshine through the windows set at street level. A place to store and dress the dead men of their ranks before they can be buried. It is a testament to the Musketeer's skill and good fortune that this particular chamber is not often put to use. Athos finds himself lowered onto one of the wooden tables and tries not to think too closely about the soldiers who might have laid there before him.

“What a terrible thing to see.” Treville's voice is tight, bitterly unhappy with this whole business. “Open your eyes, Athos,” he commands.

Athos does so. Blinks dizzily in the low light. “So,” he draws out the word, testing their expressions. “I am now newly dead. D'Artagnan?”

“Is playing the game masterfully,” Aramis assures him. “Not long now.”

Porthos does not let go of his jacket, working his fingers hard into in the supple leather so that he shakes Athos ever so slightly back and forth. His eyes shine in the low, dusty light of the cellar. Black like buttons. “You’ll be all right, then?”

Athos nods, squeezes his arm. “I’ll wait a few hours and then slip out on one of the carts.” They’ve already prepared a change of clothes; and it really is theatre. Clever disguises – the Musketeer uniform traded for a commoner’s cloak and hat – and daring schemes. “Come find me in the Wren after?”

After the funeral.

The hand fisted in his jacket finds its way to the nape of his neck and Porthos’s mouth forms a hard, grim line. Aramis bends to kiss his temple and assures him with false airiness “we will be sure to say only wondrous things in your honor.”

Treville hesitates on the step before following them out. “Athos,” his blue eyes are frightfully pale. “I’ll pretend to bury you today, but for the love of God, do not ever ask me to do it again.”

Later, in the shade of the tavern, Aramis tells him softly how they had lowered the empty coffin into the ground, how he and Porthos had tried to laugh, had spoken so fondly. How Porthos’s voice had caught and his eyes had grown wet.

Athos reaches across the table then, presses each of their hands in his own, and prepares to rise like Lazarus from the dead again.


	2. Chapter 2

The dust settles in Paris – caught in the last of the day’s bright sunbeams – and Athos does not have to contemplate dying. He is sure this is what it must feel like.

His insides have been hollowed. Scooped out. Entrails left lying in the scuffle of dust where she had knelt, discarded with her pendant. Idly, he brings one trembling hand up to the hollow of his throat to feel for the flutter of a pulse, the rise and fall of his own breath.

Does he still live?

“Athos.”

He digs beneath the layers of leather, the scarf and linen shirt that snare his trembling fingers – breath catching. Where is his pulse? He can only see the sword-point dipping white-edged against her breast. Just deep enough to leave his mark. Not deep enough to draw blood – to do the job. And isn’t that how it has always been between them…

Never enough.

A coward in the end.

“ _Athos_.”

Aramis has gone, slipped away into the spaces between the buildings. D’Artagnan and Constance vanished as well, hand-in-hand round the corner in the summer’s evening sun. There are only the few rude pigeons scuffing in the dirt. There is only Porthos who watches him with round, dark eyes and something fragile on his half-parted lips.

The question, torn from inside Athos is ragged. Bereft. He spreads his empty, gloved hands standing in the middle of the Paris street. “What am I supposed to do?”

Two long strides to close the space between them. And Athos keeps his chin tucked to his chest, breathing hard. Risks a wide-eyed glance up through his eyelashes when there is nothing but _Porthos_ in front of him – the sweat smell and tang of gunpowder, the tooled leather and the breadth of him blocking out the rest of Paris.

And Porthos captures the back of his skull in one sturdy hand, squeezes the nape of his neck as he draws their foreheads together. The sweat glues their skin. “Come with me.”

“Where?”

The broad shoulders give just an inch. “Does it matter?”

“I need a drink.” Athos needs to drown. He needs to sink his shame in the bottom of the bottles – drink until he can’t see, can’t think. Until his name becomes a question and Anne’s face a blur upon his mind. And as he drowns he will feel the weight of Porthos’s eyes on him, a silent witness to his humiliations. His wretchedness.

Instead, Porthos looks at him carefully and says “not tonight.”

“Porthos.” Athos rolls his eyes, says his friend’s name with a cajoling edge – just the hint of bite. _Don’t test me_. If ever there were a night for drinking, this would be it.

“ _Athos_.” Porthos meets him with granite resolve. One dark eyebrow rises, a mirror of Athos’s own sardonic expression.

A test of wills.

And Athos – Athos, who could not even find the spine within him to kill his wife properly for the second time today – looks away. Ashamed.

Porthos sees the angry flush that spreads across his broad cheekbones. “Look,” he says, watching Athos sideways as they walk. “If you’d rather go drink yourself stupid at the Wren, I figure that’s your prerogative, but not a day ago I had to put you in the ground. I’d like to keep my eye on you, just a bit longer.”

That makes Athos’s chest do something complicated – a squeezing, sobbing feeling that tries to rise up behind his breastbone. Oh. “Porthos,” Athos studies him, a thousand machinations behind his pale green eyes. “It wasn’t true.”

“Yeah,” says Porthos. His eyes rise away from Athos to rove over the profile of the arrondissement against the sky. “I been watching you very steadily try to drink yourself to death, waiting to take a bullet or a sword thrust just the wrong way. Not intentional, mind – you aren’t reckless, aren’t jumpin’ on any bayonets – but if it happened I don’t think you’d be to sorry. And it isn’t true. You dyin’ isn’t one bit true.”

It stops Athos in the street. Draws him up to a shuddering, stuttering halt. “ _Porthos_ …”

“Tell me I’m wrong.” And the look in Porthos’s dark eyes says he wants so desperately to be wrong. To be reassured that he has misjudged.

Athos casts about, helpless. And he realizes that somehow they have walked through the streets of Paris all the way to Porthos’s apartments – the rooms on the second floor not much larger than his own, but less meanly furnished. Purses his lips, working a swallow around the knots forming in his throat. “I can’t.” He chokes on the confession.

Porthos curses.

The stairs are dark – the sconces unlit – and the warped planks emit all kinds of shrieks and groans under Porthos’s heavy tread. Athos follows him silently up to the room. And the air grows warmer around them somehow, unease and anticipation and the same dizzy-sick sensation that has left him reeling since he dropped Anne’s pendant in the dirt sets sweat to prickling in the small of Athos’s back.

Musketeers are efficient men – they have learned how to heave their gear off and back on again in less than two minutes. Porthos strips away his sword belt and pistols, leaves the battle-harness on its hooks. Gloves. Leathers. He says “tell me.”

Athos, rooted on the spot, says stupidly “there is nothing to tell.”

“I deal with enough stupid from Aramis, don’t you start too.” Porthos shakes out his shirtsleeves, broad and glowing in the low golden light. His eyes, when they rest on Athos, are kind. “Tell me.”

“Tell you what, Porthos?” And Athos hardly realizes that the distance between them has closed again, that he is secured with the expanse of Porthos at his front and the sturdy wood door at his back and Porthos’s strong hands deftly, gently reach to unbuckle the sword belt from his waist. “That I loved her, and I should have killed her, and I didn’t? That I am _full_ of pain?” He shakes his head. “Porthos – I cannot _feel_ anything. There is nothing of me.”

The weight of Porthos’s hand pins him against the door, fingers splayed across his chest. It’s warmth bleeds through the layers of leather, linen – sweaty skin-on-skin. And there is something serious and very, very dangerous in his eyes when he leans into that last bit of Athos’s space. Pats palm against wildly-beating breast twice in reassurance. “There is a good heart beatin’ in your chest and don’t you tell me it means nothing.”

And then Porthos decides to take a chance – a gamble. A risk. The cards are in his favor, he thinks, but there is no ace hidden up his sleeve if fate is not with him tonight. There is only Porthos and Athos and the breath between them when Porthos cups the dear, bedraggled face in both his hands, dragging his thumbs across the blunt cheekbones.

Athos, owl-eyed and breathless. Who looks like he might break. Like he has never been handled so carefully.

“Tell me if you don’t want this, though. Or just punch me.”

Porthos kisses him.

Just a dry, closed press of lips and beard-scratch and Porthos is careful. So careful. Athos practically vibrates in his arms – all tension and reserve – and Porthos just wants to draw him closer, feel his heartbeat, and never let him go. He needs to know. Athos is here. Athos is alive. For now, for today, for this moment he is safe.

“ _Oh_.”

It is a small, startled sound. And Porthos is drawing back, ready to apologize, to throw himself on his knees and beg forgiveness if this will not cost him Athos’s friendship. And then Athos rises to meet him. He presses every inch of himself into Porthos’s space, knocking foreheads and noses and teeth in the clamor and Porthos buries his fingers in the hopeless mop of hair and holds him tighter exchanging whispers.

“I’m here.”

“It’s all right.”

“I’m sorry.”

And Porthos has managed to get the linen shirt untucked, drags the callouses on his hands over the smooth planes of Athos’s sides. The small of his back. Athos’s nimble fingers seem to be everywhere – Porthos’s chest, his ribs, undoing his buttons. And for that, Porthos slips his hands down the back of Athos’s breeches and squeezes.

Athos gasps.

“C’mere.”

It’s easy enough to hitch Athos up into his arms – and it startles a soft _huff_ out of Athos, never quite a laugh, but close enough – to cup his thighs and feel the powerful fencer’s legs wrap securely around his waist as Porthos carries him the few steps from door to bed. And he feels more than just the working of Athos’s thighs. There are other very serious situations stirring for the both of them.

“Have you -?” Porthos’s breath stirs the scruff of hair behind Athos’s ear.

Shame, curling Athos’s spine. “A very long time ago,” he admits. The faint, faded days at Pinon – before Anne.

Athos bounces a bit unceremoniously when he hits the mattress, and Porthos doesn’t think he has ever looked more lovely. He says as much, shucking his breeches and crawling up the mattress to find the vulnerable spot behind the hinge of Athos’s jaw.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Athos admonishes and his fingers thread their way into Porthos’s thick curls. “Don’t – I… _oh_.” Another kiss to the hollow of his throat – a sensitive spot, evidently. Interesting, that.

“M’not being ridiculous,” Porthos grumbles, and just for that he sinks his teeth into the ridge of Athos’s collar bone. Just hard enough to make him gasp, not hard enough to really hurt. Soothes it immediately better with a kiss.

Deft hands gather in the hem of Athos’s shirt, skimming it up and up until it bunches around his ribs and Porthos nips and kisses the stocky width of his chest, teases his teeth along Athos’s ribs until he shivers.

And Porthos never takes his eyes off him – drinks in every gasp and flush and flutter of eyelashes and rumbles into the quivering of Athos’s belly “I’ve got you alive and whole and here in my arms? No lovelier sight in the world.”

“Porthos.” He has never heard his name so wrecked, so mangled in Athos’s mouth. The bedcovers are twisted into knots in his pale hands, the well-loved face screwed up and sweaty and gasping.

He draws up onto his knees, settles between Athos’s thighs. And they are so close, nothing but heat and hardness and Athos’s damned breeches between them and those need to go _right now_.

But Athos rocks into him, bashes the back of his head against the pillow and demands “ _Porthos_ – come up here and kiss me again.” There are tear-trails that have slipped from the corners of his eyes along his temples. “Porthos, please.”

Porthos obliges. Folds Athos into him until they might just meld together, crushing the words into Athos’s mouth. “You’re alive – you’re alive. I have you.”

Athos clings and clutches. Makes small, wounded noises in the back of his throat. The bedframe creaks and Porthos groans and the pair of them slide together in a wreck of sweat and desperation and when Athos goes rigid in his arms, Porthos hunkers over him and brushes the damp, curling hair from his temples and presses kisses there.

“I’m here, love,” he promises. “I’m not lettin’ you go.”

Scarlet-faced, chest-heaving, Athos rolls his face away. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m sorry – I…”

Porthos lets his hand creep lower, finds the dampness in Athos’s breeches. “Been a long time, hasn’t it?” he hums, tucking his nose into the line of Athos’s jaw.

Athos grunts an affirmative, flopping his hand numbly against Porthos’s shoulder. “You though – you’re not…”

“Doesn’t matter.” Porthos is still very much aware of the weight hard and heavy between his own legs, but it’s true – it doesn’t matter as long as Athos is here and whole and safe in Porthos’s arms.

Of course, Athos has other ideas.

“Like hell it doesn’t matter,” he snaps. And he is still jelly-limbed and half-tangled in the sheets, but he shoves Porthos over – he goes willingly enough – and takes a moment to smooth his knuckles across one dark, glowing cheek before he ducks down, taking Porthos into his mouth.

And isn’t that a bloody sight.

Athos – serious-faced, prickly Athos who he loved so dearly – with that droll mouth stretched around the tip of his cock, a furrow of intense and furious concentration between his brows. And, damn him, those eyes never waver from Porthos as he works – gauging every swallow and dart of his tongue.

And Porthos, mesmerized – warm and helpless – gasps out “Athos. _Athos_!”

There’s a jerk. A shudder. Athos chokes. Tries to swallow.

“Ah, bollocks,” Porthos groans, boneless.

Athos lifts his head. His eyes are enormous and unblinking – shocked. There is mess in his beard. His hair. He works his throat a few times, grimacing. “That bad?”

Porthos snorts and throws open his arms, indicating the narrow expanse of mattress unoccupied beside him. “Nah. C’mere you.” He folds Athos into his arms, both of them sweaty and sticky and settled. It turns out that Athos’s head fits just so into the juncture of his shoulder, his body a perfect match for the snug space against Porthos’s side.

He pets Athos’s hair and Athos smooths his fingers over Porthos’s heartbeat in his chest and Porthos could drift off to sleep – content. Secure. But…

“I can hear the cogs turnin’ in your brain, Athos.”

Athos scoots a little bit closer, if that were at all possible. “I am… remembering.” He drops a kiss onto Porthos’s bare chest. “I am alive. And living doesn’t have to hurt.”

Porthos says “good.” The tightening of his arms says _I have you now – I’ve always had you – and I won’t ever let you go._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God help me, folks, I did try. I've never really turned my hand to anything particularly smutty before so... be kind when you tell me to never ever attempt it again?


End file.
